


distance in our eyes

by soundofez



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: F/M, Family, Gen, M/M, Mild Language, Reverb 2016, Social Anxiety, Summer Vacation, or rather a mild frequency of strong language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-16
Updated: 2016-07-16
Packaged: 2018-07-24 10:25:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7504720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soundofez/pseuds/soundofez
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soul is not here to make friends, he’s here to get away from family, build a sand sculpture, and relax. Vacation-y things, basically. Too bad he came with his family to begin with, and who is this Maka? [Reverb 2016.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	distance in our eyes

**Author's Note:**

> WELCOME TO REVERB SEASON, Y’ALL. First, a huge shoutout to the amazing people at [reverbmod](http://reverbmod.tumblr.com/) for putting this event together! I was partnered with [@mr-proma](http://mr-proma.tumblr.com/), who composed/sang/put together the amazing song that inspired this fic. This piece has given me ups and downs, but I hope you enjoy the final product!
> 
> Last but most certainly not least, BIG BIG THANKS TO [@professor-maka](http://professor-maka.tumblr.com) and [@dollypopup](http://dollypopup.tumblr.com) for looking this over for me!
> 
>  **Links:** [[event tumblr](http://reverbmod.tumblr.com/)] [[partner post](http://mr-proma.tumblr.com/post/147546285814/)] [[fic on tumblr](http://soundofez.tumblr.com/post/147507714308/)] [[proma on ao3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Professor_Maka/works)] [[dolly on ao3](http://archiveofourown.org/users/DollyPop/pseuds/DollyPop)]

> _on the cobblestones_

* * *

“Welcome to the start of the Summer Sand Sculpting Contest!” the announcer bellows into her loudspeaker, brimming with enthusiasm. “Old timers, welcome back! Newcomers, we hope you’ll enjoy our contestants’ work!”

Soul tunes her out in favor of watching fine beach sand seep between his bare toes, imagining the weight of it soaked and packed and structured. Should he go for a classic castle this year? Or an instrument?

“… and last but far from least, our King of Sand has returned!” Soul lifts his hand mechanically for the crowd, but he directs his gaze toward the ocean lapping at the sand. “Sandman, weaver of dreams, builder of our most extraordinary sculptures, is back again for the title.

“Contestants, the theme this year is: Fair weather! As always, we leave the interpretation up to you, folks!”

A guitarist, Soul decides as the crowd around him dissolves. The tuning board could get tricky, but the shape of a seated person is decently simple, with points of detail that can be made recognizable. It won’t be too big, but that’s okay: it’s easier to fill space than to scrounge for sand.

It’s approaching high tide. Soul takes the opportunity to start compacting sand, shoveling out a shallow, circular pit perhaps two feet in diameter and dumping buckets of seawater in. He does his best to ignore the pigtailed girl that hovers around his site, avoiding her curious eyes and keeping his music turned up in his earbuds. When she finally disappears an hour later, he plops down next to the rough cylinder of sand and is pleased to find that it comes up to his shoulders.

By the time he trots to the changing room to rinse sand off his ass and change out of his swim trunks, his sculpture base is chest-high when he’s standing.

The ride home is short and blissfully uneventful. Soul cuts the gas on his motorcycle a good distance from the house and walks it up the driveway so that he can ditch his flip-flops next to his bike on the cobblestones and sneak around the house to the orchard. Little red and yellow cherries dangle in bundles from two of the trees on either side of the walkway there, pulling the corners of his lips upward. He can’t claim credit when he’s only around two weeks a year, but it’s nice to watch them bloom while he’s here.

The cherries are delicious.

When he can’t comfortably hold all the cherry pits in one hand, Soul heads back to the house. There’s no sign of the gardener, which is a relief, even if Soul secretly hopes that the man approves of his caretaking. A stray black cat brushes by his ankle, though, purring, so Soul stoops to pet the creature. “Nice to see you, too, Blair.”

Wes spots him from across the open living room, where he is sprawled artfully on the couch, laptop in lap. “Welcome home, Soul,” he drawls pleasantly, and Soul scowls back as he steps through the back door. He has to bite his tongue to keep from throwing any of his usual sarcastic banter— his parents aren’t particularly good at detecting irony, and Wes probably wouldn’t hear him from under those huge, noise-cancelling headphones anyway.

“There you are,” Mom exclaims, rushing over from the stove, planting a kiss on each cheek, and filling Soul’s nostrils with a pleasant mixture of spices. “Dinner’s almost ready.”

“You know, we have a groundskeeper, Soul,” Dad grunts from the island counter, pecking his fingers at his laptop.

“He’s right,” Mom tells Soul matter-of-factly as she resumes her post at the stove. “I don’t know why you insist on spending your time on something so… so unnecessary.”

Says the person who brags to her guests that _my younger son Soul has the most amazing green thumb, really, just amazing, come see._  Soul wants to call her out, to accuse that she doesn’t seem to think it unnecessary when she’s showing the orchard off, but he empties his hand of cherry pits and says only, “It clears my head.”

“I think it’s cool,” Wes says cheerfully. His headphones have relocated behind his ears. “I like being able to eat fruit and say that my little bro helped grow it.”

Mother squirms. “It’s just so filthy,” she complains, wrinkly her prim nose as she turns off the stove. “All the dirt and insects, and you always come in so sweaty and stinky.”

Soul shrugs as he washes cherry stains from his hand. “Nothing a shower doesn’t fix. Besides, I work after dark, so it’s not even that hot.” The humidity makes him feel gross, but it’s better not to give Mother any material against him.

They seem willing enough to let it go at just that. Soul spends the next ten minutes stewing over things he could have said: things like how Mom cooks meals here, like how Dad drives them around and tunes their vehicles here, like how Wes becomes just a hint more flamboyant and irreverent here.

“Oliver is coming tomorrow morning,” Mother announces abruptly. “Just after breakfast. I expect everyone to be ready to greet them, okay? We’ll give them a tour of the house and then we’ll take them to the Kaloses’ for dinner.”

“Them?” Wes asks.

“He remarried! The wife’s daughter is visiting, too, so you two can have fun with her.”

Soul is pretty sure she means that Wes can chat up the mystery girl while Soul lurks, but whatever. If this house tour goes anything like the last one, Wes will charm them within minutes, and Soul will squirrel himself away in the orchard after the visitors have gone tromping through it.

“How was the beach?” Wes asks after dinner, sprawled on Souls’ bedroom floor, this time plugged into his phone, texting away.

“Good,” Soul says, and is mostly telling the truth. (How is he supposed to say that he doesn’t remember what a good day feels like?)

“Contest going well?”

“Got the base set up. Leaving it to settle overnight.”

“What’s the plan?”

“Guitarist. Not sure how it’ll work with the theme yet, but I have four days. Three and a morning.”

There’s a pause, during which Wes smiles at his phone, thumbs still flying over its screen. Finally, he half-asks, half-announces, “Wanna head over to Kid’s place earlier tomorrow?”

Soul feels his lips quirk upward. “If you can manage it, sure.”

“Can do, little brother.”

* * *

> _around and around_

* * *

“Get up, Soul,” Wes drones from outside his door, tapping on the heavy wood. “Oliver is almost here.”

Soul opens his eyes and considers the ceiling fan spinning lazily over his head. “What time is it?”

“You missed breakfast,” Wes informs him wryly. “Mom’s in a fluster and dad is… not happy. I assume that was the goal?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Soul lies innocently, mashing the heels of his hands to his eyes.

“Mom’ll be up in ten to check on you, by the way.”

“ _Fuck_.”

“I’ll buy you another ten minutes, but you owe me a ride to Kid’s, redeemable when I say so.”

“Jackass,” Soul accuses, sitting up in bed and glaring across the room at the door, but he’s bantering more than he’s bickering. Wes has gotten him out of too many uncomfortable situations for Soul to dislike him on any level deeper than words.

“Love you, too, little brother. See you in half an hour.”

“… Yeah. Thanks, Wes.”

As promised, Madame Evans comes sweeping into Souls’ bathroom precisely twenty minutes later, looking impeccable except perhaps for the irritation of having an unruly son. Thankfully, Soul is no longer in the shower and has on boxers, but he’s still in the middle of toweling his hair into a mess, and he doesn’t appreciate his mother combing it flat.

“Mom, please, it’s fine,” Soul snaps, ducking away from her reaching hands.

“It is not fine,” the woman huffs, brandishing a brush. “Oliver may have seen you at the beach, but I don’t want his wife and step-daughter thinking poorly of you.”

More like she doesn’t want them thinking she raised a lazy bum. Soul keeps his mouth shut.

The doorbell rings. Soul’s mother puts the brush down with a cry of dismay and dashes for the front door, her half-up hair streaming behind her like a fair cloak. Soul lingers for long enough to ruin her attempts to make his hair lie flat, and then heads out to face his doom by his own social ineptitude.

“And this is my step-daughter, Maka. I hope she gets along with your boys,” Oliver is saying as Soul emerges. Soul’s eyes follow that man’s body language, bounce off an unfamiliar woman dressed in eye-bleaching colors, and land on a stick of a girl in a golden sundress and a pale yellow cardigan.

Maka’s hair is half-tied back, leaving short bangs to fall over her forehead and a thin sheet behind her shoulders. She is vaguely familiar, at least until Soul realizes that she looks like a cross between Liz and Patty and banishes the idea that they might have met.

“It would be fantastic to be related at last, wouldn’t it?” Mother titters, and Soul doesn’t bother hiding an embarrassed grimace.

Maka only smiles politely as she extends her hand to Wes. “Nice to meet you…?”

Soul watches the girl carefully as Wes takes her hand with a theatrical bow. Her smile is brittle at best, a poor attempt at hiding how ill at ease she is over Mother’s comment. (Most people his mother half-jokes about wedding her sons to are more flirty and/or bashful, obviously aware of the prestige that comes with being an Evans, but this Maka is either clueless or different and _wow_ , that is the most romcom thought Soul has had since boarding school.)

Soul wonders if he imagines the violence that flares in her eyes when Wes kisses the back of her hand, or the spark of recognition when she looks at him. Just in case, he keeps his grip loose and noncommittal when they shake. “Name’s Soul,” he tells her, and the woman between Maka and Oliver (Oliver’s new wife, whose name he missed) smiles at him.

“Nice to meet you, Soul,” the girl says politely, but Soul doesn’t think he’s imagining the aloof edge in her voice. Does she hate him already? That must be some kind of record: usually he lasts at least an hour before he flubs up. He doesn’t even know _how_  he screwed up this time.

Thankfully, Wes swoops in, and Soul gets to slink away in record time to make himself some terrible instant coffee and maybe sneak some cereal.

The relief is short-lived.

“What’re you making?” Maka asks boldly, and Soul leaps about a mile into the air, spilling hot water all down the sides of the kettle and scalding himself. “Crap, are you okay?”

“Ow, _fuck_! What— What’re you doing here?” he splutters, dropping the kettle into the sink and running cold water for his fingers.

Maka scoots his cup of coffee away from the hot water splashed all over the counter. “I followed you, duh. Are you okay?” she repeats. She at least has the decency to look abashed.

“I’m fine, I think,” Soul answers, inspecting his fingers through the rush of cool tap water.

Maka relaxes. “That’s good. What’re you making?” she asks again, as though the smell of shitty caffeine isn’t enough to tip her off.

“Coffee,” Soul says shortly as he shuts the tap. before adding under his breath, “black as my heart and sweet as I’m not.” He dumps a spoonful of sugar into his mug and gives the concoction a tentative sip.

“Really?” Wes scoffs, giving Soul yet another heart attack, and though this time he manages to keep from slopping boiling liquid everywhere, he does scald his throat. “How long have you been waiting to use that line?” Wes continues affectionately, pounding Soul’s back.

“Shut up, Wes,” Soul croaks between coughs, pressing a palm to his pounding heart.

“For the record, I think you’re perfectly sweet,” Maka informs him, and then looks surprised at herself. “That came out wrong,” she flusters. “I mean, at the very least, I’m sure your heart isn’t as black as you think.”

Wes is smirking. Soul doesn’t like it, but he’s too busy digesting Maka’s words to say anything.

“Wes,” Mother calls, her voice bouncing around several walls to them. “Come play for us!”

“Sure thing, ma,” Wes calls back. “Be there in a bit.”

“Play?” Maka asks swiftly, her gaze fixing determinedly on Wes. Were her cheeks always that pink?

“You’ll see,” Wes winks.

“Violin,” Soul answers bluntly, trailing after them, coffee still in hand.

Wes shoots him a disapproving glance as they reconvene with the adults in the sitting room, but Maka looks thankful, so Soul judges it a net win. Anyway, Wes basks in attention just as much as Mom does in vicarious praise and will probably have forgotten Soul ever spoke up by the time he polishes off his solo.

The piece is smooth and flawless, embellished with subtle flourishes that Soul envies. Oliver applauds enthusiastically, of course, and his wife also seems impressed, but Maka’s claps are perfunctory.

“Did you like it?” Soul asks under the sound of her parents’ approval, even though he can tell that she didn’t.

Maka’s smile is as hesitant as her applause. “It was nice,” she lies, obviously, and Soul wants to pry but doesn’t know how. Wes is smiling and bowing, but the glance he casts at Maka tells Soul that he noticed her reluctance, too.

“Do you play?” Maka asks him, and he startles.

He hasn’t decided how to answer when Dad interrupts. “He doesn’t.”

“He keeps the orchard, though!” Mother leaps in, her enthusiasm a little too forceful. “We have cherries and pomegranates and peaches, would you like to see them?” She’s already moving toward the screen door to the backyard. “Are any of them ready now, Soul?”

Soul curdles a little at her two-faced pride. It seems unfair to claim credit for what is mostly the gardener’s work, but it’s also too much of a fight to explain that he just likes working with dirt and greenery, so Soul keeps his reservations to himself. “The cherries are ripe,” he says instead.

He hangs back while everyone else filters slowly through the house to get outside, and once under the trees, he plucks some of the little fruits but does not partake. Instead, he hands cherries to Wes and occasionally insists that he’s had some already.

Wes notices, of course, and takes his cue. “We should bring some to the Kaloses! Why don’t Soul and I head over early? And Maka, if she likes?” Maka blinks but nods, if a bit hesitantly. “Kid should be home, he can let us in, and it’ll get us out of your hair, Ma.”

Mother pouts. “I wouldn’t want to bother them, dear.”

Wes waves a hand. “Lord Kalos is still at work, isn’t he? And Kid will be glad to meet Maka, it would be rude to leave him out for another, what. Three hours?”

“Let ‘em go, hon,” Dad says.

Mother dithers for a moment longer but finally relents. “Alright, then. Drive safe, okay?”

“Of course, ma.” Wes beckons to Soul and Maka; they fall in line, because that’s how Wes is. He bends and pecks Mother on either cheek as he passes. “We’ll see you in a couple hours.”

He smirks at Soul and Maka once they’re around a corner, out of sight but not out of earshot, and performs an exaggerated little victory jig. Soul snorts; Maka grins back.

“Who’s the best?” Wes finally crows in the car as he opens the garage door.

“You just wanna see Kid,” Soul accuses, amused.

“Who’s Kid?” Maka asks.

“My boyfriend.” Wes smiles blissfully. “But don’t tell Mam or Pap, please. They still think we’re best friends. We _are_ , of course; they just don’t realize we’re romantic.”

“Also, they’re disgusting,” Soul warns Maka. “Consider yourself warned.”

As promised, Wes greets Kid with kisses, alternating cheeks with an enthusiasm that Soul finds both enviable and uncomfortable. He’s always a little astonished at how affectionately the otherwise stern-faced Kid receives and returns bises, even though he and Wes have been an item for… years now, huh, that’s something.

“How’ve you been, Kid?” Soul asks, once Wes has settled from kissing to cuddling.

“Just fine, thank you, Soul,” Kid replies. “Who is this?”

Maka extends her hand. “Maka. It’s nice to meet you, Kid.”

Kid lifts an elegant brow as he extracts his right arm from Wes’s embrace and takes Maka’s hand. “Of course,” he huffs in resignation, “you’ve been with the Evans brothers all day. My name is—”

Soul laughs at the look on Maka’s face. “Stick to Kid,” he advises.

“Kid isn’t even a name,” Kid argues. “Is it a reference to my height? Or my age, perhaps? Is it really so difficult to say—”

Wes coos Kid’s name. “Sweetie, we can’t even tell the difference between you saying it correctly and us making a legitimate effort,” Wes says apologetically, pecking the crown of Kid’s head. “And I know how much it bothers you when it’s mispronounced.”

Maka blinks. “Wait, how old are you?”

“Older than Wes,” Soul informs her, and laughs again at the skeptical look she gives him. “Seriously,” he adds.

Maka turns back to Wes and Kid. “Seriously?” she insists.

“He’s not lying,” Wes smiles. “I’m 27. Kid is 29.”

Maka looks appalled. “I thought _my father_ had a uniquely bad case of baby face.”

“I feel I should take offense,” Kid notes offhandedly.

“Oh, no, I’m sorry, it’s not a bad thing! I just, uh. Don’t have the best relationship with Papa.”

Kid pauses politely, in case Maka wants to expand, but she doesn’t. “Well, come in before the mosquitoes do. What brings you to our little town?” Kid finally asks.

“Mama wanted me to meet her new husband,” Maka explains immediately, sounding relieved as she crosses the threshold. “I won’t be here long— just visiting.”

“How long are you staying?” Wes asks.

Maka hums. “About two weeks? And then I drive back to Nevada.”

“That’s not terribly far away,” Kid comments. “Where in Nevada?”

“South a bit of Vegas.”

Wes considers her, brows lifted in astonishment. “And you’re driving back?”

Maka shrugs. “I drove here, too, you know.”

“But how do you keep awake?”

“Podcasts. I call friends, too, sometimes.”

“Podcasts?” Soul repeats curiously.

“Welcome to Death City, of course,” she offers, “but I also like Hello World and Dear Jeff and Dave, if you’ve heard of them. Mythos is a good one, also: it’s like Death City, but with less humor and more suspense. Also more fact.”

Soul shakes his head. “Death City I keep up with. The others I’ve heard of, but I haven’t listened to them. I stick to The City Life and GameBox, mostly.”

“I’ll add them to the list! I always run out of podcasts to listen to.”

They take Maka on a tour around the house (she takes particular interest in the Kaloses’ two-storied library and the rickety spiral staircase connecting the levels, her half-up hair flowing behind her when she ascends) and finally settle in a lounge after about an hour. Kid and Maka each find separate chairs while Soul sits cross-legged on the floor at the coffee table, and Wes (also on the floor, but across the table from Soul) leans with knees tucked to his chest against Kid’s calves, the latter with both hands absently styling Wes’s pale hair.

“You two are really cute,” Maka admits, watching Kid’s hands part Wes’s hair down the middle.

“Aww, thanks!” Wes winks at Maka and doesn’t shoot a sly look at Soul as he continues, “Got anyone waiting for you anywhere?”

Maka waves a hand as though she isn’t talking in a room otherwise devoid of girls. “Not unless you count my best friend? Mom said we were cute when we tried, but it wasn’t working.”

“Best friend?”

“Yeah, he goes by Black Star. It’s a nickname,” she adds, somewhat redundantly, as though anyone’s name could be _Black Star_. “His name is Sebastian. He hates it. Complains that he’s not a fussy crab.”

If Maka is anywhere near as indomitable as this Black Star character (“He likes to claim that he’s a god!”), then Maka is a force of nature. Soul listens raptly to Maka’s stories, usually featuring Black Star’s idiocies, but still (begrudgingly) admitting that he’s a better martial artist than she is.

“He’s dating the dojo master’s daughter now, somehow,” she adds under her breath. “Anyway, how long have you two been together?”

“When did we make it official?” Wes asks, tilting his head up at Kid.

“Between ourselves, nearly four years ago,” Kid says absently, frowning down at how Wes’s hair rumples messily against his knee. “But we started talking more when you were about halfway through college, and of course you would visit us for at least a week every summer since I was 13.”

“Visit?” Maka parrots, swiveling her head to stare at Soul, for some reason. “You don’t live here?”

“’S a vacation home,” Soul explains, and finds himself wary of the way her nose wrinkles.

“That’s… rather extravagant for a vacation home, isn’t it?” Maka says neutrally. Soul wonders how grand their vacation home really is— its ceilings are lower than the house he grew up in, and it doesn’t have a grand piano, just an upright, and the grounds are managed by only a single (though admittedly all-purpose) keeper.

“It’s smaller than the main house,” Wes laughs, echoing Soul’s thoughts.

“Stay still,” Kid scolds, and Wes laughs harder.

“I told you,” Soul tells Maka, and doesn’t bother hiding his envy. “Completely gross.”

* * *

> _the sunset fades away_

* * *

“Thanks for the food, Lord Kalos,” Soul says, pushing himself out of his chair.

“It’s our pleasure!" Kid’s father beams. “Going for a walk?”

“Yeah. I wanna see the sunset from the beach.”

“Soul, please—” Mother starts.

“Good idea!” Wes chirps, standing quickly. “Kid, Maka, want to come along?”

“I would be honored,” Kid says dryly, but also rises from the table.

“It would be good to get some fresh air,” Maka agrees, and follows the others out of the dining room.

“I was actually gonna work on my sculpture,” Soul tells the other three once they are safely out of earshot of their parents. “Feel free to wander without me.”

“The competition started yesterday, didn't it? How much have you done so far?” Kid asks curiously.

“Just the base set up. I'm pretty sure I know what I want, now, though.”

“Can I come with you?” Maka asks Soul as Kid opens the back door and holds it for the rest of them.

“Uh, sure, I guess? It’ll be boring.” Their feet thump hollowly against the wooden planking of the staircase leading down to the beach.

“We’ll be heading to the café down the other way, then?” Wes suggests, looking down at Kid for confirmation, who nods.

They part ways. Soul waits until they've put a solid minute between them and the couple. “Usually people can't tell when they want to be alone,” he finally notes offhandedly.

“They were subtle,” Maka says evenly. “With a papa like mine, though, you pick up on cues or you see things you really don't want to see.”

Soul lifts a brow at her. “The same one with the baby face?”

Maka shrugs. “He's a gigolo.”

Soul's other brow shoots up to mirror the first. “That... uh. Seriously?”

“He's got the face for it. It pays well, too.”

He's not sure how to even begin to reply to that. “You, uh, live with this guy?”

Maka waves a hand. “I would've stayed with Mama if I could have, but she traveled too much when I was a kid, and she and Papa agreed that it would be better for me if I stayed with him. Something about stability.”

Well, it's practical, Soul will give it that. His assessment of her has been thrown off the rails, though. “Am I... allowed to ask about their relationship?”

“Divorced, obviously. It wasn't pretty.” Soul wonders dryly if divorces are ever pretty, but keeps his mouth shut as Maka continues. “Mama won't talk to Papa, and I refuse to pass his messages. Better for everyone— What are you doing? This area is off limits!”

Soul blinks at her from the other side of a rope. “I'm a contestant,” he informs her bluntly, fishing his artists’ pass from his pocket. “And I wasn't lying when I said I was going sculpting.”

Maka squints at him. “So you _are_ Sandman.”

Soul squints back. “You were there?”

“I pay attention to competition,” Maka huffs as Soul’s eyes drift back to his sand base.

He mentally fixes her grammar, already more focused on the sculpture than on her. “I’d ask if you want to help, but it’s a solo contest…”

Maka looks flabbergasted. Soul gives up pretending to be social and starts shaping his sand.

Soul's secret to sand sculpting is simply to go. The theme doesn't matter that much: the judges don't particularly care how much you stretch interpretation, so long as the end result is impressive. A castle on a cloud (the obvious idea, with a theme like _fair weather_ ) would be really cool to pull off, and as they were passing the group entries he spotted a couple of sites that looked as though they were heading in that direction, but Soul knows sand, and knows that between the time limit and the kind of sand here, there is no way he can get the texture that would best simulate a cloud.

“... Are we even allowed to be here?” Maka finally asks, pulling Soul out of his thoughts as he's blocking out gently slouching shoulders of sand.

“It's an open beach.”

“This late, I mean. And you're working on your piece? That seems like cheating.”

“The sun’s still out—”

“It's setting as we speak.”

“—and there's nothing in the rules against it,” Soul continues, unruffled. “Besides, I wasn't able to come at all today.”

Maka glances at the sun setting over the Pacific. “Neither was I,” she says quietly.

“Hm?”

“What are you sculpting?” she asks.

Some sliver of Soul is off balance, processing Maka’s words and coming away with a gnawing feeling that he is missing something. The rest of him is too focused on sand to care, and really the only reason he answers her is because the question is about the sculpture. “A guitarist.”

“A guitarist? What does that have to do with fair weather?” She sounds a little scornful, but sand is the one thing that Soul feels secure about, and her scoffing bounces right off.

“A street guitarist,” Soul elaborates, as he concentrates on not scraping away too much sand, as though he isn't following a whim of an idea. “Street players are a good indication of fair weather. When the weather is bad, they're gone, protecting their instruments from humidity or rain or heat, but when it's nice and clear? They're there, on the corners, outside subway stops, playing for a living and enjoying it.”

Maka sits on that for a while. Soul takes advantage of the quiet to figure out how the statue will sit. By the time they wander their way to the coffeehouse to find Wes and Kid, the sun has set, and Soul has carved a rough approximation of a guitarist’s posture out of the sand.

* * *

 

> _how the waves roll in_

* * *

With no familial obligations, the next day is a sculpting day. Soul slips into the garage early, a bottle of iced coffee in hand, and nearly jumps out of his skin when Father catches him.

“That beach contest again?”

Soul pretends his spine hadn't straightened at his father’s voice and doesn't turn or reply. He slaps his hand over the switch to the garage door.

“You're wasting your time, Soul. You should be focusing on your studies. If nothing else, you have more than enough experience to be a concert conductor.”

It's faster to walk his bike than to start her. Soul wouldn't be surprised if dear old dad tries to close the garage door on him, so he wheels her out.

“Don't ignore me, son.”

Soul finally looks at his father when the back wheel of his bike is out of the garage. “I don't have anything to say, dad.”

The man scowls at him, crossing his arms over his chest. Soul almost misses what he says, too distracted by the jarring image of his otherwise formal father in a casual t-shirt, probably in anticipation of tuning the other vehicles that will be left in the garage.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Master Evans asks his son, who refocuses in time to shrug.

“Exactly what I said? You won't like what I want to say, and I'm not gonna lie.” He's out of the garage, now, and facing the correct direction, so he clicks his garage door remote. “I'll be back for dinner. Bye, dad.”

It’s a little too satisfying to speed away like the annoyed teenager he feels like, regardless of the fact that he’s not technically a teenager anymore, so he slows when he spots familiar ashen pigtails down the street. “Maka?”

She pivots when she hears his call, and then she eyes his bike. “Where are you headed?” she asks, as though she doesn't already know.

“Down to the beach,” he informs her anyway.

“Can I hitch a ride?”

Soul lifts a brow. “Sure, I guess? Don't you have a car?”

Maka shrugs. “I’ve never been on a motorcycle before.”

Soul eyes her skeptically and climbs off to dig out Wes’s helmet, which is too big on her but will at least keep them from getting pulled over. “Well, get on, then,” he says, once he's remounted, staring at Maka staring at the helmet he just handed her.

Maka snaps into focus and scrambles on with surprising grace, considering she's never ridden a bike before, though her helmeted head bounces uncomfortably off his shoulder blade. Still, once aboard, she clenches her fists in his jacket uncertainly.

“We’re gonna crash like this,” Soul tells her, sticking his hands out awkwardly at his waist and wiggling his fingers up at her. “Hands down here, pigtails.”

“Don’t call me that,” Maka snaps, but gives him her hands.

“Sorry,” Soul apologizes as he plants her hands on either side of his waist. “Here, we’ll start slow.”

Maka bristles. “I can handle it.”

Soul rolls his eyes. “And I'd rather not crash into a ditch because you're not used to turning with me. We're starting slow.”

And they do, riding lazily over smooth concrete for about five minutes. Maka starts out stiff and gets worse, mostly because she's trying to keep from plastering herself to Soul’s back.

“Maka,” Soul finally tells her when he has to brake to keep them from running up a curb, “Either you learn or you walk.”

“No, I can do this!” she insists.

“So stop acting like I have cooties or something,” Soul snaps.

“You don't have cooties!”

“Yeah, thanks, so lean against me already! It's not like I can feel anything through my jacket anyway!”

He can't see her face— it's too awkward trying to twist around and look at her when by all rights her torso should be plastered to his back _no matter how much she is trying not to_ — but he finally feels her weight settle against him. “That wasn't,” she starts to mumble, and when she doesn't finish the sentence Soul accelerates slightly to drown out the silence.

They take the next gentle turn much more easily even though Maka is still awkwardly stiff against his spine.

“Beach?” he shouts over the roar of his bike.

“ _Please_ ,” Maka yells back.

They arrive safely with minimal mishaps now that Maka has figured out to just let Soul lead. “Are you gonna need a ride back, also?” he asks. “I'll be sculpting, so I'll be there pretty much all day.”

“I bet. I have the lot next to yours, by the way,” Maka says dryly.

“Wait, you’re in the contest, too?” Soul splutters.

Maka looks at him oddly. “I told you, didn't I? I pay attention to competition.” A prideful gleam enters her eyes. “And I'll _win_.”

The pieces finally click. The pigtailed girl hovering around his site two days ago hadn't just been hovering around his site— she had been, and still is, his _neighbor competitor_. Soul flips through yesterday’s conversations and cringes at himself. “Oh. Uh. Good luck,” he offers weakly.

Maka eyes him suspiciously as she stalks to her own sculpture. It's shapeless and not very well packed, Soul notices, and he should probably tell her that, but by lunch she is chatting with the boy in the other lot adjacent hers and seems to have packed her sand in slightly better.

People seem to flock to her, he notices after lunch, when her site catches the attention of other sculptors. She speaks to them happily, with a charisma that reminds Soul forcibly of Wes.

He puts his head down and blasts music through his earbuds and tries not to look at Maka. He doesn't want the attention, he reminds himself. He never knows what to say, anyway, not like Maka or Wes seem to.

Maka is still working when Soul is, long after Soul expected her to retreat to one of the stores lining the parking lot. She is flushed, and Soul doesn't remember seeing her taking breaks, even during lunch.

He leaves his guitarist with a complete face and fingers, which are the parts he always fusses with most, and an identifiable guitar, though the sculpture’s body is still only slightly more defined body since last night. “How goes?”

Maka glares up at him, and he flinches away from her sunburned rage. Somehow he's managed to piss her off, and he has no idea what he did. Well, other than not recognize her yesterday. The look she’d given him when he'd said that she couldn't help him sculpt suddenly makes too much sense, and now Soul’s flush probably matches Maka’s.

He pushes on anyway, thrusting his water bottle at her, the one he had filled with coffee this morning and has since replaced with water. “Drink.” Because he's seen people passing out from dehydration in previous years. There's always at least one, but if Maka is one of them this time, Soul would never stop feeling guilty.

She makes a face at it, but her eyes track how it swings from its hook and her hand reaches for it anyway. “Secondhand kissing? Gross.”

Soul snorts. “Do you want to pass out from dehydration?” he asks dryly, closing the distance between the bottle and her reaching hand. “Take a swig at least, but if it bothers you that much I'll go buy a water bottle from the store.” Not that he's drinking from his water bottle until he gets the chance to rinse it out— oh, never mind, she's waterfalling it. Soul watches her throat bob.

“Thanks,” she tells him quietly, and he looks away from her neck quickly, but her face remains tilted up and back. “Are you done for the day?”

Soul shrugs. “More or less. You?”

She looks down at her sand, shaped now some kind of tablet block, but still not very recognizable. “Yeah,” she says.

She's lying. Soul doesn't push it. The only words they exchange after that are farewells when Soul drops her off at Oliver’s front gate.

* * *

 

> _it’s wasted time_

* * *

“No, I'm not coming home for lunch,” Soul tells his mother, exasperated, as he packs in another layer of sand onto the raised loop he’s constructing around the guitarist.

“Why not?” she demands, her voice haughty in his earbuds.

Soul’s eyes fall on Maka. He swears she is a force of nature, bold and indomitable and downright magnetic, if the sculptors stopping regularly by her site are any indication. “I— I'm hanging out with Maka,” he says. Lying is difficult (the risk of getting caught weighs much more heavily on Soul than it ever does on Wes), but this is only a half-lie, so he can probably pull it off.

Mother squeals. “Why didn't you say so?” she croons, and then accuses, “Aren't you at that little sand contest?”

“She— wanted to watch me,” Soul grimaces.

“Is she helping?”

He opens his mouth to say _no, that's against the rules_ , but instead says, “A little, yeah.”

“You could have said something! Be good to her, okay? And at least have something for lunch if you can’t come home! See you at dinner, bye!”

Maka is going to put him in the ground. Soul backs away from his sculpture and sinks to the ground a few feet away, pulling his knees up and resting his forehead on them. The sun beats on his exposed neck and superheats the back of his shirt, but it's a small discomfort relative to the fact that he has strongly implied that he and Maka are interested in one another. (He's not, mostly, maybe. She's not, definitely.)

They’d come to the beach separately today. Maka’s been working diligently all morning, though Soul has noted with relief that she's brought a water bottle. Also, her sculpture is now recognizable as a rather large table leaning out of the ground.

“You okay?”

Soul jumps. Maka is crouched beside him, her green eyes peering at him through her bangs. The worry angling her brows multiplies the guilt of his lies.

“’M fine,” Soul mutters, looking away.

“Wanna get lunch?”

He blinks up at her. “Uh. S-sure.”

They have to step over a tiny mountain range of sand to get off Soul’s site, part of the loop he has spent the morning packing down. (It flows from the guitarist’s back like a long tail, or winding hair. He figures he can texture it with lines and notes like one long ribbon of music. Even better, the process of reshaping the face to be slightly more feminine was much faster than he'd expected.)

His brain is still halfway between rebooting and sculpting. Thankfully, Maka asks about his progress, so he can ramble about the guitarist, of how he'll be cutting it close with the addition of the hair, but he's still making good time.

“You?” he asks, belatedly. “How is... what are you doing?”

“I’m making a tablet to draw wings on! It's really fun, and everyone’s been really nice about giving tips,” Maka gushes. “It’s kind of weird— I’m a tutor, I'm used to teaching, not being taught— but it's such a great experience! I think I forgot how much I liked school.”

She was and is a bookworm, but she also helped Black Star get out of fights with her fists as well as with school administration. She was top of her class in high school (valedictorian with more honors than Soul realized existed) and remained of status in college (even when she was beat out by that obnoxious classmate of hers). She is taking a gap year between her undergraduate degree and the medical program she has been accepted to, mostly because her Papa was worried that if she doesn't take a break now, she'll never have time for it for the next decade.

“Sand sculpting?” Soul asks out loud.

Maka shrugs. “I've been around sand my whole life. Saw the poster when I drove in and thought, sounds fun, how hard could it be?”

Soul was right about Maka: she is a force of nature, bold and indomitable and utterly charismatic, drawing him into her life like a moth to flame.

Sand sculpting is something that he's forgotten how he learned, like piano: he has seen that others struggle with them, but he doesn't understand the whys or hows of sculpting, only the feel of fine grain against his palm and running through his fingers. Maka has been struggling with sand. More accurately, she's been struggling with using water in her sand. It makes sense: if her town is anything like its neighboring Vegas, she lives in a desert. Somehow, though, sheer determination has carried her through the first three days, and her tablet, though simple, is beautiful nonetheless, the lines of feathers and halos crisp against the sand.

“You remind me of one of my coworkers,” Maka muses as they wait for their checks to process. (Soul paid with card, and Maka with cash.) “It's weird, because you're not alike at all, but something…”

She subsides thoughtfully.

“What’re they like?” Soul asks, because if they are anything like Black Star, bold and indomitable and storied as Maka herself, he would take the likeness and dream of it at night.

“Their name is Crona,” Maka says. “They're pretty quiet, like you. When they focus, it's intense… like how when you focus on sculpting, everything else falls away?” She waits for Soul’s affirming nod. “Crona said that they get like that, too, but for poetry, not sculpting. And they feel similar? Their poetry, your sculpture. Sad. Lonely.”

Soul stiffens. Maka backs off.

“Um! Not that you're sad or anything. Maybe emotional is a better word?”

The waiter returns with Soul’s card and Maka's change.

“We should get back to work,” Soul says as Maka counts out bills and coins.

“Right,” she agrees.

* * *

 

> _see the crests and breaks_

* * *

Wes calls in his favor the day after. Soul figures it’s fine— the Kaloses are right next to the beach, after all.

“Have fun,” Soul tells the pair with envious amusement, leaning against one of the wooden columns on Kid’s back patio.

“Dinner after closing announcements?” Wes says instead. “Bring Maka, she’ll be there too, won’t she?”

“Yeah.”

But Maka’s name isn’t called as a finalist.

When Soul tries to look at her from the other side of her sculpture, she shifts as though to stay out of sight. When he looks for her after the obligatory victory photo for first place, she’s gone.

It’s Wes who spots her as he, Soul, and Kid are on their way to their favored café/diner up on the parking lot. “Maka!” Wes calls across the beach.

She definitely sees them, but she doesn't reply, and Soul’s heart sinks at the way she dismisses them. Wes whistles, low and astonished. “What did you do, kill her rabbit?” (She does have one. Its name is Blair, just like the stray cat around the vacation home.)

"Hell if I know," Soul mumbles guiltily, but he has a sneaking, sinking suspicion that it has something to do with beating her at the contest.

Why does it mean so much to her?

The days drag without sculpting to occupy his time. Soul watches as the cherries in the orchard ripen, turn sour.

It’s when the Evanses are visiting Oliver that Soul gathers his resolve and follows her when she sidles away from the group. “Maka,” he calls.

She ignores him.

“Maka, wait?”

She doesn’t stop, but she does snap flatly, “What do you want, _Sandman_.”

“Look, I don't know what I did, but I’m sorry. I—”

“Not interested. Too bad.” Maka speeds up. Soul wonders where she's going.

His resolve is crumbling like dry sand. He doesn't have to do this, doesn’t have to make up with Maka when he’ll almost certainly never see her again.

But he wants to. He wants some of her boldness, some of her indomitability, some of her charisma, and so he gathers what is left of his determination and pushes on.

“I know you’re mad at me. I’m sorry, really. For whatever I did. I know... I can't make you talk to me if you don't want to, but. I like... talking to you.” His voice starts firm but loses traction, dissolving into a mumble.

“I _lost_ ,” Maka bursts, finally glaring at him. “I lost, okay? Didn’t place, even after all the help everyone gave me. I worked hard for nothing while you got to walk away with the recognition and networking opportunities and you don't even need them, you don't even _use_ them.”

Soul has to struggle to find the words. “But you... I mean... I’m no good. With people.”

Maka scoffs. “No shit, Sherlock. You never said why you ignored me for all of the first day, either. And don't think I didn’t notice how you completely wrote me off as a competitor!”

“I didn’t! I mean, I just— I’m no good with people, Maka, if it weren't for Wes they’d all hate me. _You’d_ hate me, probably. You’d have hated me all week, I bet. But—” he tries to explain, half pleading, his throat closing. _He’s the worst._ “You don't need to win to network, to be known. You can just… talk to them, and they _like_ you.” His envy is back, bleeding into his voice.

“And then they see my shit and they pity me,” Maka sneers. “Great! Now they know I'm nice but useless.”

“It’s not about winning,” Soul realizes.

“Yeah, it's about beating people!” Maka retorts. “You could be famous. You _are_ famous! Everyone I talked to at the beach knows about Sandman.”

“It’s not about beating people, either! And I'm not— I’m good with sand, but I can’t do anything with it. I’m only in this town two weeks out of fifty-two, and at home, I’m a walking _deadbeat_ ," Soul says softly, darkly. “I can't make a living off of sand sculpting.”

Maka explodes. “ _But you can!_ If you just got off your high horse and talked to people when they look interested, you wouldn't have this problem!”

“Easy for you to say,” Soul snaps back. “It’s like breathing for people like you and Wes, but I suffocate! I _do it wrong_!”

“You can’t do it wrong! And what the hell does Wes have to do with anything?”

Soul grits his teeth, loathing, loathing, loathing his mouth. “Look. You don't have an older, _better_ brother or a family fucking legacy to fuck up. Your parents both love you, and you’re going to med school. Your life is _set_ , and I'm stuck with useless hobbies and no work experience and—” He chokes, helplessly enraged at himself. “Sorry. Forget it,” he snarls, and walks away from her, half blinded by furious tears.

He was supposed to apologize, not dump half his insecurities out on the cool wooden floors of Oliver’s home. He can’t even do that right. Who was he trying to kid? He’s not bold or indomitable or charismatic, not like Black Star or Maka or Wes: he’s just Soul, wary and cowering and antagonistic, all the time.

“Soul...” She’s following him now.

“ _Forget it_ , I said.”

“Do you have anxiety? No wonder you reminded me of Crona...”

He walks faster. “I don’t. Sorry for wasting your time.”

“I didn't realize. I'm sorry.” And she does sound sorry, even though it's not even her fault.

“I don't have anxiety,” Soul insists through his closing throat. “Don't be sorry. ’S my fault.” It’s always his fault, even when he's not sure for what. His tears? Her misguided sympathy? Their broken friendship?

“No, it’s not,” she says firmly, and manages to pull him to a halt by his wrist in an unexpected show of strength. “It’s not your fault you have anxiety. It’s not your fault that things are harder for you to do. It’s not your fault I didn't get it.”

Soul stares blurrily at her, uncomprehending. “I don’t. That doesn’t make sense.”

“No, you’ve just been blaming yourself for too long.” Maka wraps her arms around him.

Soul stiffens. This is different from the cursory hugs of family, different from the pseudo-embrace of sharing a bike, different from anything he's ever known. She's a bundle of warmth pressed to his chest, injecting forgiveness into his veins and saturating his body with pure caring.

He cries for the first time in a long time, and when it’s over, when Maka has sat through his tears and his apologies and has asked for his number, Soul thinks he feels okay again.

* * *

 

> _we should be as one_

* * *

“So C. P. G. Gris and Harry Bradan are great, but I finished all their episodes and now I’m stuck.”

“Oh, I see how it is. I’m just substituting for a podcast, am I?”

“That, and I took a rest stop and figured I could video call someone before getting back on the road.”

Soul grins at his phone screen. “I’m someone.”

“Yes, well observed,” Maka laughs.

He musters his courage. (It shouldn't need mustering, his mind whispers reproachfully, but he musters it nonetheless.) “Thanks,” he says quietly. “For doing this.”

“Thanks for picking up,” Maka counters easily.

“For keeping in touch, I mean,” he clarifies clumsily. “I didn’t… know if you’d want to.”

“We’re friends, aren't we?” Maka asks, one brow raised. She sounds somewhere between teasing and apprehensive.

Friends. Soul’s heart swells at the thought. “Yeah. Friends.”

“Cool.” Soul hopes he’s imagining the note of relief in Maka's voice. “So, what've you been up to today?”

“You caught me in the middle of playing piano,” Soul admits.

“I thought you didn't play.” Her eyes are narrowed and suspicious.

“My parents, um. Don’t like my style. But I do have formal training, from before we found out I can't play for shit,” Soul explains hesitantly, “When everyone else is out of the house I still like messing around, but I can’t perform like Wes does.”

“Oh.” Maka spends a moment digesting that while Soul fights anxiety. “Play for me?” she asks innocently, and he doesn't think her smile is fake. “I bet it’s great."

Soul scoffs, relieved. “I’m only doing this because I know you won’t be able to tell that it sucks, _Miss Electronica_ ,” he warns her. “Just saying.”

His fingers start up as he's talking, burying a would-be protest under ordinary scales and chords and arpeggios bouncing off the higher ceilings of the main house, before he lands on the correct key (E minor, a much simpler key signature than his usual G-sharp minor) and starts improvising in earnest. Maka gasps and oohs quietly into his ear throughout the performance, and though with anyone else Soul might find it annoying, with Maka it’s comforting to know that she's still on the line.

Even so, her clapping catches him off guard. He nearly breaks his neck when his head snaps up so he can stare incredulously at his phone.

She’s beaming. “I didn’t really get it, but I liked it,” she offers.

“Um. Thanks. I guess.” Soul stares at her uncertainly. “You really _didn’t_ like Wes’s playing, did you?”

Maka’s eyes widen. “I didn’t dislike it!” she says hastily, her cheeks flushing. “I just— um. I didn't really get it,” she repeats, like it’s a shameful secret. “It was nice! Even if I kept getting distracted by how loudly he was breathing. Through his nose. But, compared to yours, it was a little…” She struggles to finish the sentence, but then heaves a resigned sigh. “Boring?”

Soul’s lips quirk like ready cherries dangling from trees. “Says the person who listens to trance fusion.”

Maka pouts. “It’s good background noise, but it’s not...” She brandishes an arm at him through the screen. “I’d go to concerts, if it were like that. Like _you_. You’re attention-grabbing and emotional and I like it.”

Soul feels his smile widen. “Thanks,” he tells her, shyly, genuinely, and then teases, “I can’t wait to tell Wes that you compared his playing to your _background noise_.”

Maka’s eyes grow huge. “You wouldn't!”

“Like you’ll ever see him again,” Soul shoots back. “Unless you’re going to visit your mom while we happen to be in town.”

She’s quiet for a long moment. “What if I were?” she finally asks.

“I guess it’s not hard to plan, if you want to... do the sculpting contest again,” Soul says, fumbling slightly and feeling his ears heat. “That’s the week we’ll definitely be back.” Because his parents plan it that way. It’s the one thing they’ve given him that he really treasures, but never noticed, he realizes belatedly. He should probably thank them. (He won't, though.)

“I’ll keep it in mind,” she says quietly. “I should get back on the road.”

Soul exhales. “Yeah. Thanks, again. Um. For calling. S-see you eventually?”

Maka smiles back. “For sure. I’m not letting you get away from me that easily, Sandman.”


End file.
